MPD officer killed in hail of bullets

A tearful Memphis Police Officer Caroline Mason (left) is comforted after two city police officers were involved in a shooting early Friday morning and taken to the Regional Medical Center at Memphis. Officer Martoiya Lang, 32, was pronounced dead at the hospital. The second officer, William Vrooman, 32, is in stable condition.

A team of Memphis Police Department narcotics officers in body armor forced its way into a Berclair home early Friday morning to find one occupant retreating to a rear bedroom.

As officer pursued him a second man emerged and fired multiple shots from a 9 mm pistol with a high capacity magazine. The 21-year-old shooter fled to another bedroom but kept firing despite commands to surrender. An unknown number of MPD officers returned fire, hitting the suspect several times in the abdomen.

The chaotic, 8 a.m. encounter, as described by police, left Officer Martoiya Lang, a nine-year veteran and mother of four, dead, and Officer William Vrooman bleeding on the floor from bullet wounds to his leg.

Lang, 32, was shot in the upper torso and is believed to be the first female Memphis police officer killed in the line of duty. Vrooman, also 32, who has been on the force since 2007 and with the elite Organized Crime Unit since July, was treated at the Regional Medical Center at Memphis and released.

"Imagine Officer Lang waking up this morning, kissing her kids goodbye, watching them go to school, putting on her clothes to go to work and (suiting) up to hit a search warrant, not knowing what was on the other side of that door," said police director Toney Armstrong as he spoke with reporters outside The Med. "And now we know the outcome of that."

As he spoke, squad cars lined the street as officers held vigil at the hospital., a familiar scene in recent months with 10 MPD officers shot, two of them fatally, since April 2011.

"We've got a hospital room full of officers that are grieving," the director said. "This officer, she was a friend, a family member. And at the end of the day, you have these officers that'll go and have to perform the same function that this officer did and lost her life today. So that's what it's really all about."

Officials are still piecing together what happened in the nondescript, tan brick house that had a Christmas wreath hanging on the door.

The house at 1062 Mendenhall Cove, in a neighborhood of modest homes built in the 1950s, had been under investigation by OCU for narcotics trafficking.

But Armstrong would not say how long the home had been under surveillance or what type of drugs were being sold out of it. He also would not say how many officers were involved in the execution of the search warrant nor release their names.

The suspects' names were also not released because they've not been formally charged. Officials say the man police found running in the hallway to a back bedroom is a 26-year-old black male. He has been out on bond on a misdemeanor drug charge and has a pending felony drug charge that has been held to state.

The alleged shooter is a 21-year-old black male with no criminal record. He was listed in stable condition Friday night.

Since April 2011, 10 Memphis police officers have been shot in the line of duty, including four this year, Armstrong said. Two were fatal.

"We are facing suspects that are armed with guns more on a regular basis," he said. " ... We are almost encountering this on a daily basis."

Michael Williams, president of the Memphis Police Association, said incidents like Friday's shooting and a similar case last month in North Memphis in which an officer was shot by friendly fire, are becoming more prevalent.

"These are very dangerous situations, and it's getting even more dangerous because a lot of the criminal element now, they don't want to go peacefully into the night," he said."

Lang, who had been with police department since 2003 and the organized crime unit since 2011, leaves four girls, ages 14, 13, 12 and 2.

"We pray for Officer Lang's family, especially her four children," Armstrong said. "They will not have a mother to celebrate this holiday season with or any other significant events in their lives."